With the advent of annually-resolved polar ice records extending back to 70 ka, marine and continental
paleoclimate studies have now matured into a discipline where high-quality age control is essential for
putting on an equal pace layer-counted timescale models and Late Quaternary sedimentary records.
High-resolution UeTh dating of speleothem records and 40Ar/39Ar dating of globally recorded
geomagnetic excursions have recently improved the time calibration of Quaternary archives, reflecting
the cross-disciplinary effort made to synchronize the geologic record at the millennial scale. Yet, tiepoints
with such an absolute age control remain scarce for paleoclimatic time-series extending
beyond the radiocarbon timescale, most notably in the marine record. Far-travelled tephra layers
recorded both onland and offshore provide an alternative in such instance to synchronize continental
and marine archives via high-resolution 40Ar/39Ar dating of the parent volcanic eruption. High-resolution
40Ar/39Ar data are reported herein for one such volcanic marker, the Green Tuff of Pantelleria and its Y-6
tephra equivalent recorded throughout the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Published radiochronometric
and d18O orbitally-tied ages for this marker horizon scatter widely from about 41 ka up to
56 ka. Our new 40Ar/39Ar age at 45.7 1.0 ka (2s) reveals that previous estimates are biased by more
than their reported errors would suggest, including recent orbital tuning of marine records hosting the
tephra bed that are reevaluated in the context of this study. This improved estimate enables potential
phase lags and leads to be studied between deep-sea and terrestrial archives with unrivaled (nearmillennial)
40Ar/39Ar precision in the marine record.